Gentle reader, what a week it’s been!
I was attending a conference in New Orleans this past week (I’m writing this blog post from my hotel in the Big Easy–I fly home today), so I didn’t write any new content for you, thinking I might want to blog about the conference along the way. I was so busy, though, tweeting mostly, that I never had time, and beyond that, my head is so full of information, I need a couple days to digest it all before I put together a wrap-up post for you next week.
The conference was called Sage Summit, and it was a blast. There were some huge names here, and a lot of inspiration and learning. The conference next year is the last weekend of July in Chicago, and I highly recommend it!
As you can imagine, I’ve been Instagramming a lot since I’ve been in N’awleans. There’s a lot here that is visual: food, architecture, and historical sites. Well, let’s be honest–mostly the food!
I have had many conversations with my fellow Instagrammers over the last week that all went something like this: “do you ‘get’ Instagram? When’s the best time to post? How do you get likes?” and the universal answer has always been that Instagram is a tough nut to crack.
A great deal of what you need to do is to experiment and then look to the analytics (I like Iconosquare) to see what’s working. Post on different days, at different times of the day, use different hashtags, and try different filters. Then see what happens! Hopefully you’ll be able to boil it down to a science that works for you.
Today’s Infographic is about exactly that, and it’s a gooder. Dan Zarella at Hubspot analyzed half a million Instagram users, to see what were the things that were driving likes.
Here are some actionable tips on how to get more Instagram likes:
Maximize your engagement potential: by “engagement potential,” I mean tag anyone you that’s appropriate to do so in your post, and also use as many appropriate hashtags as possible. Instagram lets you use a maximum of 30 hashtags. I find that to be quite a lot, but if you post about similar topics a lot, you can keep a list of hashtags in a note on your phone that you can just copy/paste into each post. The thought here is this: if you tag someone in your post, they’ll get a notification, and probably like your photo. Hashtags make you searchable, so it makes sense the more you use, the more searchable you become.
Calls to action: it’s one of those “well, duh!” things, but asking people to like or comment on your post is obviously a great way to get them to do so. Beyond that, though, ask questions. Asking questions is a less, um… shall we say… obvious way of getting engagement on your post.
Take good photos: Instagram is a photographer’s medium. People that are good photographers get lots of likes. So, this includes things like taking sharp, well-framed photos that are well lit. Lighting is the key! Additionally, photos that are lighter in nature perform better than photos that are darker in nature, and the most “liked” filter is no filter at all!
Photos with faces: it kinda kills me to say this, but every time I post a selfie, the number of likes I get on that post is always higher. I’m not a fan of selfies–they make me feel self-conscious (selfie-conscious???), but human beings long to connect with other human beings, and that means looking at faces.
Now, here’s your infographic. What have you found really works for you? Share in the comments below.
Infographic courtesy of Social Media Today.